Man with police siren pulls over off-duty Avondale police officer

A Surprise man was arrested Tuesday after he pulled over an off-duty Avondale police officer in an unmarked police car and told him to slow down, police said.

David Word, 61, was booked into the Fourth Avenue Jail on one count of impersonating an officer, police said.

Officer Matt Lydic was on his way to work at the Avondale Police Department when he was stopped by an unmarked police vehicle near Coldwater Springs and Avondale boulevards, according to a police report.

Lydic said a man driving a black Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor model turned on a police siren while driving behind him, authorities said. Lydic pulled over to the side of the road believing there was an emergency vehicle he couldn't see. The driver pulled up beside him and told him to slow down.

Lydic said the man was not wearing any kind of uniform or law-enforcement identification, the report shows. He observed red and yellow lights in the rear window of the Ford and a mounted laptop computer inside as the car drove away.

Lydic ran the license plate and discovered the car was registered to Word.

The Surprise Police Department said the car was not one of their unmarked patrol vehicles and there was no mention of Word in their records.

When Avondale police called Word, he acknowledged telling a driver to slow down but denied impersonating a police officer, according to report.